LOS ANGELES -- Fine art and digital media art are as different from one another as paintings are from Internet memes, ideas or phrases that propagate like germs by traveling online from person to person.
Conventional wisdom values art partly because it's scarce -- there's only one Mona Lisa, and it isn't hanging in your living room -- but the impact of digital art only increases as it multiplies through spontaneous, viral transmissions.
Art will make a detour from the realm of the cultural cognoscenti to the world of karaoke on Nov. 1, when Southern California media art coalition LA Freewaves kicks off its eighth biennial Festival of Experimental Media Arts, "TV or Not TV."
The month-long event will be the largest in the group's 13-year history, say organizers, who plan to transform an assortment of urban venues -- from museums to billboards -- into showcases for art.
More than 350 artists will present about 300 works at close to 65 venues, including museums, Koreatown pool halls and neighborhood Internet cafes. The festival will also take place on three TV channels, and online.
Ambitions are high at this year's gathering: Included in the dozens of events at the 2002 festival will be a series of workshops aimed at launching a new artist-controlled television arts channel by late 2003.
"What's not on TV is as significant as what is," said Anne Bray, Freewaves' founder and executive director. "There are more extraterrestrials on television today than Asians, Latinos and Native Americans combined, so there's a lot missing from television's role as a forum for public self-reflection. It's up to us to fill in the blanks."
Bray said the trend toward more affordable technology and mobile digital video technology like cameras and desktop editing systems is fueling an explosion of fresh art, new audiences and new artists.
"Before, artists had to figure out how to access costly facilities for editing and output," she said. "Now, $5,000 buys you just about everything you need to produce high-quality video artwork."
In choosing work for this year's festival, 10 curators evaluated thousands of submissions from around the world. The resulting selections include documentaries, animated films and non-narrative video art, but all share a common thread: Los Angeles.
"We selected pieces for their relevance to local audiences, and with hopes that the experience might help audiences elsewhere better understand L.A.," Bray said.
Among the events that comprise Freewaves are an evening of lo-fi Internet video art, a video tribute to Nigerian afrobeat legend Fela Anikulapo Kuti and showcases of media art from Peru, Colombia and the Middle East.
Also included in Freewaves 2002 is what organizers are calling "The world's first Internet memefest."
Held at an "art laboratory" located in Chinatown on Nov. 1, the event will feature six hours of short screenings and talks by academics, artists and fans speaking about digital memes as a new form of folk art.
Memefest organizer Eddo Stern said Friday's event will examine topics of interest to students of Internet culture, like conspiracy theories, celebrity torture, the Slashdot effect and Osama-bin-Laden-as-meme.
"We're also going to unveil a real-live meme, which we call the 'Gameman,'" said Stern, "It's the world's only fully functional 6-foot Gameboy replica, and it's a marvel."
He adds, "Killer memes are like great art -- they just seem to come out of nowhere," he said. "They harness the Net as a medium that's both anonymous and public, and that's what makes them so compelling. They're like online cultural ids."
